In colder climes, I remember looking at ice storms and thinking that Faerie must have this same sort of beauty–stunningly beautiful, utterly deadly.
Last night, running with the smell of those blossoms thick in the air, breathing hard all the way, I had the thought that the smell of citrus blossoms could work the same way–at least for those of us with allergies.
I’m not allergic to citrus blossoms, to my knowledge, but I am allergic to things that bloom at the same time. A moderate allergy, all things told, that merely makes me wheeze and get stuffed up and such.
But … as I ran, I could just picture another, more otherworldly sort of place, where the scent of some other blossom was sweeter and headier still, and where you’d find yourself inhaling deeply and thinking about how lovely the smell was, even as your airways closed up–and somehow in my brain this was much like the ice storm that crashes cars and bends and kills trees but is so stunning to look at–only different, a desert version.
Fortunately, I live in this world, so I could simply make proper use of my asthma medicine and enjoy a slightly-slower, slightly-wheezier run than usual.
There are definite advantages to living in this world, too. 🙂